Lessons Learned
by Fleur27
Summary: Eric Taylor reflects on seven lessons he's learned during his life.


**Disclaimer:** **I don't own anything here****and am just doing this for fun and to pass the long months until Season 4.**

**Author's Note: And now for something completely different. When I started thinking about writing a story in the second-person, I figured for sure it would end being from either Tim's or Julie's POV. So I was pretty surprised when it was the Coach's voice and story that fell into my head.**

**Hope you enjoy this little change of story owes a great deal to Pam Houston's ****"How to Talk to a Hunter", quite possibly the best second-person narrative ever written. You can find it in the book _Cowboys Are My Weakness_, which is well worth a read. (In college, if a friend went through a nasty break-up, I'd give her a pint of ice cream and Houston's book - the perfect prescription for man trouble.)**

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You stand on the brown grass, an arm around your wife, the sun shining in your eyes. Your squinting gaze takes in the rotting wood in the bleachers, the missing panels in the fence, the craters in the field, the garbage blowing idly in the breeze.

It's like the ending scene in a post-apocalyptic movie. Except this is no movie. It's your life. And even though it seems like a nightmare, you know you have to keep your chin up and keep moving.

For Tami, the shock is wearing off and now anger is setting in.

"Two times you get them to State. I can't _believe_ this is how they show their thanks and appreciation," she says and you know if she really gets on a roll, you might never be able to stop her.

Your rub her shoulder and try to remain level-headed and philosophical.

"It's just the life of a football coach, you know that. There's no guarantees. Doesn't matter if you've been winning – if they think someone else is going to be better for the team, they're going to hire that guy."

She zeroes in on the obvious weakness in your flimsy philosophy. "Yeah, hon, but this right here, this isn't about what's best for the team. This has nothing to do with the team and everything to do with one guy who's got a lot of money and not much else."

You sigh and wrap both arms around her, pulling her close. You kiss the top of her head and breathe in the honey-vanilla of her shampoo.

You look out over the desolate field and your mind spins through all you need to do. Tell Julie. Clear out your office. Find out your new budget. Make a plan. Figure out who might be on the team.

You decide the one thing you're definitely _not_ going to do is tell your father. He still hasn't gotten over your leaving TMU and he will never get over your not going into the NFL. After not speaking to you for six months after you returned to the Panthers, he told you he was disappointed to realize that all you were ever going to be was a high school coach. You figure if that's his attitude, he doesn't need to know which high school it is.

Your mother, God rest her, had more to do with the kind of man you turned out to be and for that, you will always be grateful.

Tami leans against you and asks if you're ready to go home. You pause, taking one last look, burning the image into your head. It will be your fuel in the days and weeks ahead. When things get tough, you will remember these first hours, how and where you started. It can only get better from here.

This is what you've learned while coaching football: There's no security in any single job, but you can be secure in believing that there's always going to be another job.

--- --- --- --- ---

When you get home, Tami pays the babysitter and you check in on Gracie Belle. She's sprawled across her crib, her blanket clutched in one hand and the other pressed tight into a fist. You put your hand on her back, feel her breathing and try to match it. It calms you down more than you would have ever imagined.

You loosen your tie as you walk into your bedroom, where Tami has already kicked off her shoes and is taking out her earrings.

"Can you help me with the zipper?" she asks, turning around and lifting her hair out of the way. An unspoken invitation hangs heavy in the air.

You pause first to kiss her neck and trail a finger along the neckline of her dress. Then you carefully ease down the zipper, slide the silky green fabric from her shoulders and watch the dress melt down to the floor. Tami turns around and you lose yourself in her, in this body, this woman you've known and loved for so long.

Later, afterwards, when you're both slightly out of breath, sweaty, tangled in the sheets, she rests her chin on your chest and looks at you.

"You know what I can't wait for?" she asks, a mischievous grin playing at the edges of her lips.

"I don't know, about twenty minutes to pass?"

"Well yes, that, but no, in the longer term. I can't wait until your Lions get to play Wade Aikman's Panthers."

You rub your jaw and consider that situation. If you're honest with yourself, you'll admit that you want to crush that team so badly, it's nearly a physical ache. You smile at Tami but say nothing.

"Honey," she says, her voice low and earnest. "You might only win one game next year. And if there's any justice in this crazy world, the Dillon High game will be it and you will _crush_ them."

This is what you've learned in almost 25 years of marriage: your wife is always right.

--- --- --- --- ---

Julie comes home well before her curfew for a change. You and Tami are sitting on the couch, drinking wine and talking about everything except football. You're not waiting for your daughter, exactly, but you would like to tell her before she finds out from someone else.

"Hi, I'm home," calls Julie in the whisper-shout that she has perfected since Gracie was born.

"We're in here," replies Tami in a similar voice.

"Have a seat," you tell Julie when she arrives in the room. You've decided this should be like ripping off a band-aid: fast, perhaps a little painful, but ultimately a relief.

Tami hears your tone and shoots you a look that you think means 'this isn't the right time', but you just want this done.

You clear your throat and are about to speak when Tami talks over you, asking Julie what she's doing home so early. You want to be annoyed, but you can't be because Tami's maternal radar is right on target, as usual.

Julie is upset because Matt is deferring college to take care of his grandmother. You let your wife and daughter talk this one out as your mind wanders. You finish most of the bottle of wine while they talk. When you can barely keep your eyes open, you excuse yourself for the silent comfort of your bed.

When you finally tell Julie the next morning, she takes it much worse than you expected. She is outraged, in that huffy and self-righteous way that only a teenage girl can manage.

In the space of three minutes, she comes up with seven ideas of how to fight this. You half-listen, mildly amused even as a nasty hangover clangs around in your head like the Ghost of Christmas past.

"Are you okay, Dad?" she asks when she realizes you haven't said a word in response to her ideas.

"Yeah, Julie, I'm fine. I'm just a little hungover," you tell her, summoning up your best reassuring smile.

"I can see _that_," she says as she rolls her eyes. "I mean are you okay with this ridiculous, unfair, completely stupid decision?"

You nod your head slowly. You have, in a fashion, made peace with it. You're struggling to find the words to explain this when Gracie starts crying.

You slowly scrape back your chair, but Julie's up before you've moved even two inches.

"It's okay, Daddy. I'll get her." She kisses your cheek as she leaves the room.

This is what you've learned in 17 years of being a father: For every temper tantrum, terrible fight and teenaged sulk, you get one of these moments that reminds you of the magic of unconditional love.

--- --- --- --- ---

You sit in the stifling gym trying to surreptitiously loosen your tie and undo your top button. Every time you're close to gaining a little relief, Tami nudges you with a sharp elbow. It must be close to 100 degrees in here, with the entire senior class and all of their friends and families packed in to witness the graduation ceremony. You're surprised no one's fainted yet and if you were a betting man, you'd put your next pay check on the third seat in the second row: a large, older woman in a polyester pants suit.

On stage, Lyla Garrity looks like an angel in a white graduation robe and she's moving confidently through her salutatorian speech.

"No regrets," she says and you immediately recognize it as Tim Riggins' mission statement. You smile to yourself. When a man gets to be your age, if he says he has no regrets, he's either foolish or lying.

You close your eyes and pinch the bridge of your nose. Your biggest regret is what happened to Jason Street. For months after your conversation with Mitch, you wondered if you could have done something to prevent it. If you should have gone over tackling drills with the quarterbacks. If you stressed winning too much. If you had called a different play or set up the blockers differently or changed any single, tiny factor, might Jason have walked off the field after that play?

You damn near gave yourself an ulcer over that one, although you never told Tami about it. You kept a supply of antacid in your desk drawer and every time you snuck a sip of Maalox, you felt like an alcoholic.

You're not sure what changed but you reckon it had something to do with the settlement meeting. Jason made it clear he didn't blame you and, in doing so, he gave you permission to stop blaming yourself.

It also helps to see that the boy's managed to make something of himself. It's nowhere near the life everyone thought he was going to have before the accident but it's also not the life everyone feared he would have after it.

The other big regret in your life is TMU. Not leaving the job. No, you deeply regret taking it in the first place. You were just so caught up in the moment, the excitement of it all, that you never stopped to ask yourself _why_ you wanted it. You just though that you did. You thought that moving up, moving onto better things was the whole point of working.

Maybe if you'd examined your motivations and thought carefully about what the job would entail, you could have saved yourself an enormous headache and many months of strained family relationships. You all came through the experience relatively unscathed. And a good bit wiser. But you still feel a twinge of regret when you remember that bad decision.

This is what you've learned from regrets: What's happened is done. Over. Finished. It's good to learn from the past, but not so good to dwell in it.

--- --- --- --- ---

The field house at East Dillon High won't be ready until the beginning of July, so you volunteer to work at home. Your plan is to go over the budget, figure out what you can afford, look for staff and begin putting together the playbook.

But the first day, every time you sit down in the garage at the ping pong table, which is doing double-duty as your temporary desk, you find your eyes glazing over. It seems an impossibly huge task and you don't even know where to begin.

You decide to give yourself two weeks to clear your head. You make a list of everything that needs to be done around the house – from painting rooms to fixing leaky sinks – and you start tackling that list, one item at a time.

You repaint Gracie's room and put up the border that Tami had been talking about doing for the last two years. You replace the carpet in your room with laminate flooring. You fix the dripping tap in Julie's bathroom. You redo the flower beds.

Your mind wanders while you work. All of the windows are open and the noises from the street filter in. You know when the kid next door gets home from work, because the thumping bass line of his music nearly rattles your windows.

One afternoon, he's listening to a rap song and it reminds you of Smash and those raps he used to do at pep rallies. That boy was made for the spotlight and the fact that he racked up several hundred yards last year as a mid-season replacement at A&M is a huge source of pride for you.

You think about all the work he did to rehab his knee and regain his form. You think about how close he came to walking away. And you remember your advice. You remember what you told him. "Change your game. Humble yourself."

The words ring in your ears like an echo in a canyon. Wade Aikman can have his flashy spread offense. You've got to change your game. As a former QB, you'd always been built your teams and strategies on the back of a strong offense. The approach is more in line with your personality: making things happen rather than preventing them from happening.

But you have a memory bank loaded with over thirty years of offensive plays. Instead of using that knowledge to develop a new offense, maybe it's time to treat it like opposition research. Know thine enemy.

When you think about great defenses, the think about the Steel Curtain, Mean Joe Greene and all those other SOBs who broke your young heart twice when they beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. They had speed, heart and attitude. That's what you're going to look for in your new team.

You know a lot of the kids over on that side of town play soccer and run track. You're going to build your team around speed and guts. You might have to trade off on size. You might end up with kids who've never caught a ball in their lives.

But you don't care. Because you're going to find a way to work with these new kids, whatever skills they do or don't have. You know that most of life is just showing up and a huge chunk of the rest of it is attitude. And your team is going to have the right attitude.

"This might work. This just might actually work." You say the words out loud, softly, just to hear them. Just to make them real.

This is what you learned during your two weeks of working on your house: It's a wise man who takes his own advice.

--- --- --- --- ---

Someone, you'll never know who but you suspect it was Buddy Garrity, sent copies of the secret Boosters map, to the local weekly paper and to the Midland paper. In no time, reporters were coming to Dillon, trying to find out the real story. Were the Boosters really running the show? Did football take precedence over academics?

Had it just been reporters, it may have blown over. But the map was also sent to some of the state legislators, a few of whom had axes to grind with the way funding was allocated in schools.

The school board hastily held a meeting, heard from scores of angry parents, took a vote, and went with the original Collier Avenue proposal with the caveat that any current Panthers to the east of the line had the option of deciding which school to attend. You're just glad you know where the line is. You can work with that.

You hear whispers and rumors over the next several weeks. House-swapping. Address falsification. Other attempts to game the system. You know some dads are pissed that their soon-to-be freshmen have ended up on the "wrong" side of the line.

You spend your afternoons driving the streets east of Collier Avenue, checking out the players in your district. It's not recruiting. It's getting to know them.

You check the rules and talk to a couple of folks at the Texas High School Athletics board. You make sure everything is done strictly by the book. Everyone agrees you're in a unique situation and that informational meetings would not be considered recruiting.

You print up signs and flyers to get the word out. The meeting has to be in the Dillon High assembly room, since construction is still continuing on upgrading the "new" high school. You hate that it has to be this way, but you try not to dwell on it.

On the evening of the meeting, you put on your new forest green East Dillon Lions shirt and baseball cap. The bill of the cap is too crisp. You take the hat off and bend it in your hands a few times. The green looks foreign on you, but you're sure you'll get used to it.

You're surprised to find the assembly room packed with teenaged boys and their parents. You think you see Joe McCoy loitering on the edges, but you push the thought out of your mind.

You step up to the microphone, clear your throat and begin with a short introduction.

"Gentlemen, what we have here is a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a new football program from scratch. This is the magic of a clean slate, a fresh start.

A wise guy in the second row speaks up. "That's great, but if we're already playin' for the Panthers, why should we come over to the Lions? You think you got as good a chance of going to State?"

"That's an excellent question and I'm so glad you asked," you say with a tight smile that borders on a grimace.

"You play for the Panthers? JV? Freshman football? Depending on the position you play, you might be waiting a while to get your shot at starting. I'd wager that only 25% of the starting positions are truly up for grabs. With the Lions, 100% of the starting positions are undetermined. Everyone, whether you've been playing since Pee-Wee or you're just getting started, has a truly equal opportunity to win a starting spot. You all have a chance to prove yourselves."

You take a deep breath and look down. You adjust your cap and when you look up, you try to make eye contact with as many boys as possible. You see that Lance kid standing in the back, grinning.

This is what you learned from losing the Panthers job and gaining the Lions job: Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

--- --- --- --- ---

When you finally get the okay to start using the facilities at East Dillon, it's a humid day at the beginning of the Fourth of July weekend. The walls have a fresh coat of paint. The locker room is smaller than at Dillon High, but you have a couple of offices, a trainers' room, a weight room and a film room. Of course, you still need coaching staff, trainers, weights, a projector and a camera.

The air conditioning is either off or broken and you can't find the main controls for it. You open every window in the place and turn on the fans, which makes it just nearly tolerable.

You go into your office, put your coffee mug on the table and take a deep breath. The plain white walls with green trim are so sterile, so lacking in character, that it feels more like a hotel room than an office. You lift your cap and wipe the sweat off your forehead, thinking it's going to be a long day, week, month. You have so much to do in the next month, seems like your To Do list has its own To Do list.

"Knock, knock," says a voice. You look up and are nearly blinded by Smash Williams' dazzling smile.

You stand and greet him, then realize there's no place for him to sit down, so you suggest going outside. His keen eyes take in everything, but, for once in his life, he's smart enough to say nothing.

You sit in the middle of the bleachers, which still need some work. The fence, at least, has been fixed and the field no longer resembles the surface of the moon.

Smash and you have a nice chat for about ten minutes, mostly about A&M and his future, before he mentions your situation.

"Coach, I just want say, you were done wrong and everyone knows it."

You meet his eyes, press your lips together and nod. You can feel a muscle in your jaw twitching and you make a conscious effort not to grind your teeth.

"Well, Smash, that's football. I got a real good opportunity here and I'm gonna make the most of it."

"You know, if they'd made these changes a few years ago, I would've been a Lion," he says, looking out over the grass, which is struggling to take root and stay green in the harsh Texas summer

"That so?"

"Yeah. And Coach, I been talking to the guys I know on the team, and the new freshmen in my neighborhood. I think you're going to see a lot of them on the first day of practice. I think you're going to be surprised by how many guys are willing to pick you over the Panthers."

You turn your head slightly, happy for your mirrored shades and answer him as blandly and politely as you can. "That's nice of you to say, Smash."

"Listen, Coach, I was thinking maybe I could stop by when you start practices. Maybe help you out with the running backs. Teach them some skills."

"That's a nice idea, but you'll be at training camp by the time we start up here."

His face falls. "Oh yeah. It's just....I really want to do something to help you . You're the only reason I'm at A&M and I'm never going to forget that."

His open honesty and emotion make you uncomfortable. You shake your head and try to downplay your actions.

"Now, now, you did all the hard work. All I did was supervise and set up the meeting. Everything else – that was all you. And like I told you – I only did it because I was sick of seeing your ugly mug at the Alamo Freeze."

He laughs, his smile exponentially more dazzling in the sun.

"You want to do something for me? When you're in town, stop by and talk to the team. I'm sure they'd love that."

"Consider it done."

"I will, Smash. I will."

A black pick-up truck turns the corner into the parking lot and bumps its way over the potholes, the driver making no attempt to avoid them.

Smash shakes his head and grins. "Riggs....that boy is always going to run over things instead of going around them."

You stand up and shake the paint chips and splinters from your shorts and walk down to the parking lot. When you get to the truck, Riggins is leaning against it. He greets you and then turns his attention to Smash. You smile as the two exchange good-natured barbs.

"Actually, Williams, I'm glad to see you. I could use your help unloading this," Riggins says, gesturing to the back of the truck. You notice that it's full of weight-lifting equipment.

"I'm living over with Herc now and he's already got everything, so there was really no space for it and Mindy said if I didn't do something with it, she was going to throw it out. Didn't want that and figured y'all might need it here," he explains.

You shake his hand and wonder when the boy got so thoughtful. It takes the three of you a full twenty minutes to unload everything and get it set up inside the empty weight room. Figuring out what you can afford in here is yet another task on your never-ending To Do list.

When you're done, Smash says his goodbyes, leaving you with Riggins. You look at him awkwardly, wondering why he's still standing there, hands on his hips, hair falling into his face. You always wished that boy would get a haircut.

"Sorry...about all this, Coach," he finally says.

You tell him it's not his fault and he nods, but you somehow think that he might actually feel responsible in some way.

"Son, I hope you were saying that like 'sorry this happened', sort of like you'd express condolences on a death and not because you're feeling somehow responsible for this."

You hold his gaze until he looks away.

"I don't know, Coach, but maybe if we'd won State...." his voice trails off and he looks back at you.

"This is football, things happen," you say, deja vu settling over you. All that's missing is the rain.

You wait, looking at him, until he nods his head in understanding and agreement. You're not going to get into all the whys and wherefores of this with Tim Riggins, but you're satisfied that his mind has been put at ease.

You hear voices in the locker room and wonder why you didn't get the memo that declared this Visit the Coach Day.

"Hey, Daddy," says Julie, bouncing into the room.

Matt Saracen, carrying a box and looking out of place, greets you awkwardly from the doorway.

"So, we thought that your locker room could use some brightening up. Matt's volunteered to paint some slogans and a mural on the wall," says Julie. From the look on the boy's face, you wonder if volunteered is really the right verb.

Julie drags you out into the main part of the locker room, talking quickly and making sweeping gestures. Saracen stands with his hands stuffed in his pockets and shifts nervously on his feet. He looks like a slightly older version of the shy and uncertain 15-year old kid you first met. You don't know what's going to happen to him now that he's deferred college. But you are absolutely dead certain of one thing: If that boy ever develops self-confidence, he will be unstoppable.

"So, what do you think?" Julie asks.

You haven't heard much of what she's said, so you nod. "Sounds like a plan."

"Oh, and I nearly forgot," she adds. "'Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose'...that's going to go above the door there, if we can find a ladder."

You rub your jaw and think of how to respond without hurting her feelings.

"Honey, that's very, _ very_ sweet of you, but that was with the Panthers long before I arrived and it should probably stay with them. But you can help me think up a new team motto."

"Uh, yeah, about that, Coach," stammers Saracen. "I heard they repainted the place and put up something new."

"They did, huh?"

"Yeah. I think it's.....'Whatever It Takes'?" His voice goes up at the end, making it a question, but you see Joe McCoy's hand in this. You would lay money on the punctuation being a big-ass exclamation point. Maybe even with a football helmet for the dot.

You repeat the motto incredulously.

"Good luck to them with that," mutters Riggins, who'd been so quiet, you'd forgotten he was there.

"I think you should keep it, Dad. It's as much yours as anyone's," says Julie.

"Me too, Coach," says Saracen.

You look over at Riggins, who sticks out his lower lip, considering the unasked question. "Definitely, Coach. Definitely."

"Well, then, I guess that's settled. I'll let y'all get on with it." You smile and go back to your office, where you can hear them talking.

"Seven, you need some help with that?" asks Riggins.

Saracen stumbles over his words. "No, Riggs, you don't hafta, I'm sure you got better things-"

"Seven, just tell me what to do. Pretend you're still QB1."

You look around at the sterile walls and consider asking them to add some decoration in your office. It's not your home-away-from-home yet, but it's starting, slowly but surely, to feel that way.

This is what you learned in three years of coaching the Dillon Panthers: All you ever want is to be a high school football coach.


End file.
